


Aftershocks

by truth_bob_omb



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Budding Romance, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_bob_omb/pseuds/truth_bob_omb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LaFontaine and Perry both long for the simplicity of old times as they deal with their shifting relationship. Budding LaFerry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftershocks

Perry sat perched on the edge of her bed, fingers clasped so tightly the knuckles of her tiny hands were a ghostly white. Come to think of it, she was, too. Her right foot bounced up and down involuntarily as she sat there. It was driving her crazy, this sitting. She stood up suddenly and moved briskly towards the bathroom.

It would be helpful if she could clean something. Anything. Too bad she had already scoured the tiny room from top to bottom. She surveyed it once again to be sure but not a thing was out of place. Of course it wasn’t. She had always been kind of a neat freak and when she was anxious, oh boy, did it get kicked into high gear. She bristled at the faint scent of formaldehyde. No matter how many carefully crafted potpourri satchels she hung around the small space, it always smelled faintly of formaldehyde.

Perry propped herself up against the wall as the rumbling from the pit in the center of campus shook the room. Why? Why couldn’t she just go to a normal school, with normal people and just be normal? But normal was far from what her life was right now. She just wanted to go back to the days when everything was easier. When school was just school and a roommate was just a roommate and Su-

She paused her train of thought to glance over at her best friends side of the room. Everything was changing. Sure, her parents  had warned her that college would be difficult but she had been expecting late night cram sessions and dorm drama not sapphic vampires and goat sacrifices. What kind of educational institution had goat sacrifices, anyway?

The dorm door swung open and Lafontaine strolled in. Their eyes met for a moment. Everything had been so strange between them lately. Perry looked down nervously, unspoken words hovering in the air all around her. What could she say?

“I...have to go check on the brownies.” she blurted, rushing past Laf and out of the room.

The force of her exit whipped Lafontaine around and they watched Perry vanish down the hallway. This was her third batch of brownies today. They turned around and walked into the familiar smell of formaldehyde and cleaning products.

Tossing the flash drive in their hand gently onto their desk before collapsing into bed, they sighed. Perry had been able to accept the fact Carmilla was a vampire. How long would it take for her to accept that...Lafontaine’s thought trailed off. Accept what? They weren’t even completely sure themselves.

Their mind wandered off to  a memory of the two of them playing as small children. No matter what they played, be it monsters, cops and robbers or astronauts Perry had always wanted to be the practical one. If it was monsters she wanted to be the monster mommy, if it was cops and robbers she wanted to be the emt, and although she once wondered out loud what dusting would be like in the zero gravity of space, she always preferred playing ground control. Laf on the other hand was a risk taker. Their  monsters were shapeshifters, their robbers enhanced with superpowers, their space missions filled with genetically enhanced droids sent from light years away. But somehow it worked. _They_ worked.

What they would give to go back to that. To a time where they were carefree. A time before they had realized Perry’s hair smelled like fresh strawberries and lilies or before their heart had started doing that idiotic skip-a-beat thing every single time she walked into a room.

The blaring sound of an alarm echoed through the hallways and LaFontaine stood worriedly. Not a moment later, Perry strode into the room, magenta hair bouncing wildly, brownie tray in hand. Laf rushed to close the door behind her, their shoulders brushing as they did. They glanced at each other shyly.

“What do you think it is this time?” Laf asked, their hand still grasping the knob of the door, as if for support.

“Who knows?” Perry twittered,bounding away from them towards her desk where she neatly placed the brownie tray.

“The way that pits been rumbling I wouldn’t be surprised if the Earth split open and spit a legion of bats and mold spores into the atmosphere.”

Laf bit back a wry smile.

“You know, a few months ago you would have sworn it was something less sinister like an earthquake or you would have called it something like a ‘severe erosion of sediment resulting in the displacement of winged mammals and fungi’.”

Perry continued to needlessly fiddle with the perfectly centered brownie tray.

“Of course, it _is_ still possible that it’s _exactly_ what it looks and feels like. One can still hold out hope for some sense of normalcy.”

LaFontaine’s skin prickled. Something about the way she was speaking made it seem as if it were about so much more than just the pit.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” they asked, slightly defensive.

“Nothing, I…” her voice tapered off and the room fell into silence as she shifted papers on her desk into meticulous piles, then from those piles into another series of more meticulous piles. There was a loud, snappish crackle of feedback and suddenly the headmaster's voice filled the little dorm room. The entire campus was on a lockdown.

“Lockdown?” Laf sighed, annoyed. “Guess I won’t be heading to the library.”

Perry glanced towards the small thumb drive on Laf’s desk.

“Weren’t you just at the library?” she asked.

“We were but we’re still working on something.”

Perry’s delicate fingers moved deftly across the fabric of her turtleneck searching for any stray thread out of place. There weren’t any.

“We.” The word flitted from her mouth, soaring quite higher than expected. She had meant for it to sound nonchalant. LaFontaine shifted uncomfortably.

“JP and I.”

“Yes. I know who you meant by ‘we’.”

Perry lowered herself slowly into her desk chair as she spoke.  Her back was turned to them.

“You two sure have been spending an awful lot of time together lately.”

Laf buried their hands deep in their overall pockets, even though her back was turned  to them they could tell her cheeks were tinged with pink.

“So what?” they said, the blood rushing to their cheeks as well.

“People are even starting to say you two are-” she turned her face towards them, “dating.” she finished in a rush before quickly dissolving into a fit of laughter, which far from sounding carefree actually sounded hysterical and just a touch angry.

“If you think I’m actually going to waste energy refuting the idea that I may or may not be romantically involved with a sentient flash drive, you’re out of your mind.”

Perry’s last string of laughter was sucked sharply back into her throat.

“Do. _Not_. Call me crazy.” she  huffed angrily before standing and storming into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

“I didn’t call you crazy!” Laf called through the door, “ I called the idea of me dating an ancient storage device crazy. And since when do I care what the idiots here think? Since when do you?”

Just then another rumble shook the foundation of the building. The lights flickered a moment before pitching the entire room into darkness. There was a small squeak from behind the closed bathroom door and Laf jumped up making their way quickly towards the sound, banging their shin on the edge of the desk as they did.

“Perry?” they whispered, their pursed lips pressed gently against the slight crack in the sealed door, “Are you alright?”

The breeze from the quickly opening door ruffled LaFontaines hair. They couldn’t see Perry but they could smell her. Strawberries and lilies. Perry took a small step into the room and was immediately pressed against their chest where they still stood just the doorway. She could feel their warm breath on her forehead and she swore she could almost feel their heartbeating softly against hers.

“Laf?” she whispered thickly.

“Y-yes, Perry?”

“You’re...I”

“What is it, Perr?”

“I need-I need to find the candles. Will you hold my hand?”

They linked warm hands, Perry’s just a touch smaller than Laf’s and stumbled through the black space together until they arrived at the armoire. Perry reached her free hand into the back left corner of the large dresser. There was a click and their faces were thrown into soft light and shadows. Using the glow from the lighter, Perry located the emergency candles and lit one carefully.

“You can never be too prepared.” she chirped, strolling to her desk and setting the candle gently next to the tray of brownies,

“Good thing we aren’t scared of the dark anymore, huh?”  Laf asked, their face brightening.

“Hey! You know what we should do? We should build a fort!”

Perry scrunched her face up begrudgingly at her friend but there was a twinkle of intrigue in her eyes.

“Come on, Perr! It’ll be fun! It’ll be just like-”

“Ginger Castle.” she finished. Her bowed lips curled up into a smile. Ginger Castle. One of the first games the two red-haired friends had ever played together. It was like a clubhouse, a secret hideaway for just them two. The only redheads in the entire school, both outcasts in their own way. But at Ginger Castle they ruled and it was awesome.

“Okay.” Perry agreed, excitedly, “But it all goes back before morning.”

The room was engulfed in a storm of flying sheets and pillows. They giggled as they undressed their beds and dragged their mattresses onto the ground. Blankets over bedposts, sheets over pillows and on and on until a makeshift fort stood sentry in the middle of the tiny room. They scrambled into the fort happily, a small radio and brownies in tow as provisions.

They sang in hushed voices and played word games before resorting to contorting their fingers into odd shapes to cast shadow puppets on the thin canvas of blankets all around them. It all felt normal. It felt like before.

“Laf?” Perry’s lilting voice rose in a moment of silence after the laughter from LaFontaines failed attempt at a headmaster shadow puppet.

“Yes?”

“Can I...I know you don’t but..do you think I can…”

“Spit it out!” they teased, warmly.

“Can I braid your hair?” she asked, “You know, like we used to?”

Perry braced herself for a ‘no’ but LaFontaine did not hesitate.

“Of course, Per!” they answered, matter of factly.

“But it’s like the fort.” They said motioning towards their hair, “It all goes back before morning.”

Laf settled between Perry’s soft thighs, slouching a bit so that their head was at a comfortable height for Perry’s hands. Within minutes, they were falling away at the feeling of her fingers playing gently through their hair.

“Oh, Laf.” she sighed. “Why can’t it always be like this?” She tilted back their porcelain face as she spoke and saw their eyes were closed. They had fallen asleep. She smiled fondly down at her long time friend and pressed her lips gently against their forehead before settling back onto the pile of pillows at her back. Her mouth stretched open in a yawn as she wiggled her fingers in Laf’s hair. Who was she kidding? There was no turning back now.

**And with that last thought she fell into a deep sleep and they laid together, like old times, till morning.**


End file.
